CenturyTel Agrees to Buy Qwest
Updated from 4:15 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK (
) --
CenturyTel
(CTL) - Get Report
has agreed to acquire
Qwest Communications
(Q)
in a deal that reflects an enterprise value for Qwest of about $22.4 billion, including the assumption of $11.8 billion of Qwest debt.
Qwest shareholders will receive 0.1664 a share of CenturyTel for each share of Qwest common stock they own at closing. CenturyTel shareholders are expected to own about 50.5% of the combined company with Qwest shareholders expected to own about 49.5%.
Qwest is being valued at $6.02 a CenturyTel share, a premium to Qwest shareholders of about 15% over Qwest's closing stock price Wednesday of $5.24.
The merger of Qwest and CenturyTel merger is one of the biggest U.S. telecom deals in years, the
Wall Street Journal
reports. It unites two of the country's largest landline phone companies.
-- Written by Joseph Woelfel in New York.
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